She stands in one swift motion, the child gathered to her hip with practiced ease.
“Bron.”
I lift both hands. “Easy.”
Her expression could strip paint. “What are you doing here?”
Now, there are many possible answers to that question. None of them are smart.
“I was walking,” I say.
“In the family wing.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“Bron.”
The child is looking between us now, one hand hooked in the collar of her shirt. Up close, the scales along his cheek catch the light like lacquered embers. His eyes are huge. Gold and solemn and impossible.
Something in my chest gives a hard, ugly thud.
I try for lightness and miss by a mile. “You’ve got a kid.”
That was obvious. Brilliant work, Bron.
Tilda shifts him higher on her hip. “This is none of your business.”
The child keeps looking at me. Not frightened. Just intent. Measuring.
I can smell lotion, warm fabric, the faint mineral scent of scales after bath oil. Beneath that, Tilda’s skin—clean soap, stress, that sharp little citrus note from the compound laundry. Domestic smells. Close smells. Intimate in a way that hits me much harder than it should.
I look at the kid again.
My own voice sounds strange to me when I say, “He’s Vakutan.”
Tilda’s jaw locks.
“Partly,” I add, because suddenly precision feels like the only thing keeping me from saying something catastrophic.
Her eyes flash. “You need to leave.”
The child lifts one small hand and pats her shoulder as if she’s the one who needs calming. Then, in a soft rough little voice, he says, “Mama?”
That word lands in me like a dropped stone.
Mama.
Tilda softens for him instantly. “It’s okay, baby.”
Baby.
I swallow.
“Who’s his father?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Wrong thing.
Wrong time.
